The pre project jitters

I'm here in a hotel room the night before my first field project. Not my actual first field project, you all know I've been in the field before. The blogging started because of a field project. But this is the first one that I'm actually responsible for. I wrote the proposal (very small one to my University) that got some of the money. I hired the students. I did the planning with the collaborators. I got all the stuff here. I did have some driving help from hub, so I can't take all the credit for that.

I am very nervous.

I know I shouldn't be very nervous, I've done all the planning. At least I think I have: I have the nagging feeling that I forgot something but that's just life. I mostly know what to expect even though I haven't seen the site, I've studied the maps and all that jazz. I've gotten all the right permissions, blah blah blah. Planning a field project of any scale is no small task, but I think we've done it. It's all gone pretty smoothly since we started planning early, so maybe that's why I'm nervous. No last minute craziness, hence I have time to worry? (and apparently blog)

Still I'm nervous.

Maybe it's because the last one went so bad.

I'm trying not to think about that. On top of the nervous I'm very excited. My own project, mostly on my terms, and with a collaborator I couldn't be more excited to work with. That's all really exciting. She's just a few years older than me, here research fills in the gaps of mine and vice versa, and she is supersmart, award winning smart, so I know that this work will be top notch. I just hope I'm up to snuff for her. There's that nervous again.

This is one of those situations where I feel decidedly un-professorial. Like I'm really just a kid playing at grown-up. Just one more hill on the tenure track I guess.